It’s winter and most of us are suffering from “winter fatigue”. We are weary of taking a deep breath and bracing ourselves before we step out into the cold. We are sick of wearing the same winter coat day after day. The only upside, as my Mom pointed out, is that we have not lost our gloves and mittens because you can’t even think of heading outdoors without making sure we have both of them on our damn hands.

These are the days when it is hard to get motivated to do anything but lie on the couch wrapped in blankets. How, then, do we keep up on a job search? That takes a lot of energy. Energy that you could have used up walking the dog or getting a Starbucks.

The Grinbox.

Make a new folder in your inbox called Grins. Sort through your mail for messages that made you feel great when you got them. If your inbox is too gargantuan for this, filter by things like “great job” or “thanks” or “congratulations”. Put all these messages in your Grinbox.

I bet there are more than you think. I’ll also bet when you read through them, you will break your face grinning at least once.

Keep putting those positive messages in there and you will develop quite a collection. Double click on that folder any day that feels crappy, cold, wet, whatever.

If you need a message to get started, let me know. I’d be happy to get you started.